Just Because You're Made of Steel
by Order of the Aether
Summary: The weak have one set of problems. The strong have another. Natasha Romanoff is one of the strong - and that's just the thing that puts her at a disadvantage. A conversation between Natasha and Bucky Barnes, about Bruce. Pre-AoU, some spoilers (if we're still doing that...) My usual AU.
**A/N: Never watch all the clips of Bucky from The First Avenger and then read a "homeless Bucky" and "Bucky dies" fic in rapid succession. Take my word, it's not good for the emotions. Thankfully, I had a cool-down, "Bucky is sane and happy and a good-hearted idiot" piece here on reserve. Thought I'd share it with you.**

 **Slight language warning for when Natasha gets frustrated, but nothing explicit.**

 **Edit: Also, I just got a Funko POP! Bucky bobblehead, and he fits perfectly in a coffee cup. So there's that.**

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 **Just Because You're Made of Steel...**

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Natasha glanced up from her tea at the sound of the familiar, low voice. James Barnes—or Bucky, as everyone called him—ambled into the otherwise empty kitchen and leaned against the fridge. It was evening in the Avengers' Tower's Common Floor, and Natasha hadn't bothered to turn on all the lights. The glow from the cityscape outside was enough.

Natasha lowered her teacup and gave a mild smile. "I'm not thinking about anything," she replied at a murmur.

"Are we playing Two Truths and a Lie?" asked Bucky. His flesh hand and the metal one shifted in his pockets.

Natasha shot him a look.

"'Cause that's the lie," he continued, with that tight-lipped grin that Steve always praised as " _straight from Brooklyn days_ ".

Natasha rolled her eyes, but allowed herself a tiny smirk. James was right, after all. _Moy bog..._ She could be glad for him, recovering form the influence of HYDRA and taking his mind back, but boy could his original personality be a pain. Small wonder Steve called him "jerk".

After a moment's pause, Natasha turned her careful mask back onto Bucky. "Where's the penny?" she deadpanned.

Bucky began to fish in his right hip pocket. "Could'a sworn I had one," he muttered.

Natasha swallowed a chuckle. "I'm kidding, Barnes." After watching him search for a while longer, she frowned. "We're out of the Depression and you're _still_ dead broke?"

"Whoa! Watch it with the zingers," he protested, then flicked his right wrist. "Here."

A tiny glint of copper sailed through the air, and Natasha caught it by reflex.

When she opened her hand, there in her palm lay a penny.

Barnes had turned his back, occupying himself with the coffee maker. Natasha gave a barely audible sigh through her nose.

"The water's hot," she informed him.

"Thanks," was the low reply.

Ignoring her tea, Natasha turned the coin over in her fingertips. On one side, the facsimile of Lincoln—on the other, an outline of the Lincoln Memorial. So it wasn't a recent mint. The date read 1998.

Natasha flicked the coin into the air. Heads, she tells Barnes. Tails, she doesn't.

She clapped the falling coin between her palms and slapped it on the back of her hand.

Heads.

Natasha exhaled slowly. Well, whatever powers there be that ruled over coins had spoken.

"I'm thinking about Bruce," she murmured.

Bucky shut the cabinet door with a soft bang. "Yeah?" he asked gently.

Bless him for his nonchalance. Natasha laid the penny on the granite counter in front of her and stared at it. "Yeah," she agreed. "I don't know what to do."

Bucky sat down with a mug of coffee, across from Natasha and two chairs to the side. If it was an attempt to be non-confrontational—it worked. Natasha relaxed, not having to look straight at him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Bucky trace the rim of his mug with the thumb on his flesh hand. "Maybe it's a simple decision," he noted in a low voice.

"Those are the worst," asserted Natasha, turning her kindest death glare on him.

Bucky did not look up or shrug, but sipped his coffee.

Natasha stared into the swirling depths of the teacup on the counter.

Chai. It was Bruce's favorite...

A small pang that she'd trained herself not to feel shot through Natasha's chest. Yes, it was a simple decision. But maybe she wanted to make it complicated. Complicated was comfortable. Complicated problems could be approached with maneuvering and calculation, all skills in which she was well trained.

Simple problems had to be approached with...heart. And tact.

If she had those skills, once upon a time, maybe she'd forgotten them.

"I just need time," is what Natasha said aloud. If Barnes hadn't been seated a yard away, he might not have heard it. "I need time to get my head screwed on straight."

Bucky gave slight nod. The brown bangs slipped out from behind his ears, into something like a curtain.

"That's good," he whispered back. "Don't rush."

Natasha took a reluctant sip of her tea. It was growing cold.

"But..." added Bucky.

Natasha allowed him a sidelong look.

"Maybe your head _is_ all screwed on straight." Bucky looked up momentarily, meeting her eyes. "It's always the other thing you gotta worry about."

Natasha gave a light scoff. "Are you speaking from experience, Barnes?" she asked—not unkindly.

Bucky smiled and leaned back in his seat. "Honest? I don't know," he answered. "I used to be able to show a girl a good time, back in the old days before the war." As the story continued, his accent slipped through to match it.

"There was this one time, at the Stark expo. I got two girls, one for Steve, one for me, and called it a double date. Wasn't so successful for him. Poor runt never got much attention. We watched the show, took a walk around the fair, went dancing. We didn't have much, sure, but you can't buy a fun night. Seems my smile made up for it most times."

His voice fell. "Who knows if any of it was real." His eyes gained a piercing but faraway look. "You get to fakin' so long, you can forget what the real thing's like."

"Until you remember," Natasha noted softly. Until someone reminds you.

And with that, Bucky seemed to pull his mind back into the twenty-first century, and he gave Natasha a guarded smile.

Natasha returned the smile and almost meant it. "So what do you think?" she asked.

"What do you?" he returned.

 _Damn._ Natasha turned her gaze downward and wished she could wrap more than her fingertips around the little cup.

In lifting her tea to her lips, she spotted the penny.

 _Damn again_. Out of all the swirling thoughts in her head as she lowered the cup, Natasha found the simplest and gave them voice.

"I think," she began with a rare, rare smile, "that Bruce doesn't know how to fake anything."

Bucky gave a short laugh that was more like a sniff. So he'd noticed.

Natasha tried to give him a withering glare and failed. Instead, her expression turned to thoughtfulness as she added, "I think, ironically, that he's the most stable of all of us here."

Bucky nodded. "I'd agree. Him...and Clint."

Natasha's neutral expression dropped squarely into place as she shot a guarded look at Barnes. He didn't seem to notice his blunder, opting to sip his coffee.

Inwardly, Natasha relaxed. Good. He didn't know.

"Clint isn't interested in me," Natasha countered, truthfully enough.

Bucky shrugged. "I didn't say he was."

Feeling she'd done her duty, Natasha slid the penny back across the counter toward Bucky. "And I think that common sense says you don't date your coworkers."

Bucky grinned, pocketing the coin. "Common sense," he echoed kindly, "doesn't know what to do with a Russian assassin and a doctor with a gamma monster inside of him."

Bucky stood up and put his empty mug under the sink faucet.

Natasha silently cursed at his back and cursed at herself in all the languages she knew. Of course, Barnes would see it for the simple thing it was—why shouldn't he?—but she couldn't. How could he not see the one fatal, glaring flaw?

"Barnes, I'll hurt him," she said.

She watched Bucky go stiff at the shoulders, and then he shut off the water in the faucet, pouring out the liquid in his rinsed mug.

Natasha thought he might storm over or launch into some kind of a lecture. But Bucky continued to stand there, and he shook the last flecks of water out of his mug.

Damn it, Barnes!

There was the soft, hollow noise of ceramic against metal as he set the mug down in the bottom of the sink. Then, taking a seat beside Natasha—a neutral expression carefully in place—Bucky looked her in the eye.

"Give me your hand," he said, extending his metal arm.

What? "Barnes, what is this?" she asked, her tone just short of a demand.

"Give me your hand," he insisted.

Exasperated, Natasha grabbed onto the metal palm like a vice, and immediately his metal fingers closed.

A small crack of wonder must have appeared in her expression as she realized the cold fingertips pressing around her hand were breaking no bones.

Bucky's expression was as solid as his robotic limb, but it softened for a moment when he released her.

"You're strong, Tasha," he noted. The slight rasp in his voice returned, simply because of his low tone. "But just because you're made of steel...doesn't mean you'll be breaking everyone you touch."

Natasha's mind went mercifully blank as the idea sank in.

Bucky stood up and pulled his mug from the sink to place it in the dishwasher. And when Natasha cast a downward glance at her arm, she discovered that at some point, the penny had reappeared on the counter.

Natasha had to smile. Assassins could have such a ruthless way of communicating. But maybe he was right—and maybe she was ready for something of a whole other kind of scary than she was used to.

Ready for something simple.

A spy's acute skill for noticing small details kicked in when Bucky reached up the sleeve over his metal arm to scratch an itch on his shoulder.

"Is that Steve's shield?" she asked, grinning at the miniature that had replaced the old red star.

Bucky returned her glance, a ridiculous sparkling pride in his eyes. "Yeah," he answered.

" _Bozhe moy,_ " muttered Natasha, shaking her head. "How'd he handle that one?"

Bucky laughed, swinging his arms. "By turning red up to his eyes. Stupid, humble punk."

Natasha smiled, really smiled, as Bucky made his goodbyes and left.

Steel didn't have to be so bad.

And when she and Bruce had a quiet chat over the bar at one of Tony's parties, and Natasha noticed the slightest, knowing glance from Bucky across the room, she knew who she had to thank.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable."

-C. S. Lewis

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 **A/N: I like the dynamic that these two have. They make good friends. (I only ship them a little bit...)**

 **Reviews are tea with friends.**


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